In 1665, the colleges of Cambridge began shutting down. Fellows and students dispersed into the countryside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The years 1665-67 were the plague years<\/strong>. From James Gleick\u2019s Isaac Newton<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026rumors were reaching England of a new pestilence in Holland \u2013 perhaps from Italy, or the Levant, perhaps from Crete or Cyprus\u2026..Before the outbreak ran its course, in little more than a year, it killed one in every six Londoners. Newton\u2019s mother wrote from Woolsthorpe:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Isack<\/p>\n\n\n\n Received your letter..<\/p>\n\n\n\n Love to you with my motherly lov<\/p>\n\n\n\n …prayers to god for you <\/p>\n\n\n\n I your loving mother<\/p>\n\n\n\n hanah<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wollstrup may the 6. 1665<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, what did<\/em> Newton do? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Newton returned home. He built bookshelves and made a study for himself\u2026..He set himself problems; considered them obsessively; calculated answers; and asked new questions. \u2026The plague year was his transfiguration. Solitary and almost incommunicado, he became the world\u2019s paramount mathematician.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Social distancing. Mathematical research. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In creating this mathematics (Calculus!) Newton embraced a paradox. He believed in discrete mathematics – not infinitesimal. …Yet be built a mathematical framework that was not discrete but continuous….It was nature’s destiny now to be mathematized. Henceforth space would have dimension and measures; motion would be subject to geometry….He was twenty-four and he had made tools.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Newton created the epidemic of Scientific Revolution. 😏<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1665, the colleges of Cambridge began shutting down. Fellows and students…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[441,442,440,444],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myamplelife.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myamplelife.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myamplelife.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myamplelife.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myamplelife.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2675"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.myamplelife.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2687,"href":"https:\/\/www.myamplelife.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675\/revisions\/2687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myamplelife.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myamplelife.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myamplelife.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myamplelife.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}